Our View: Fall River's addiction treatment challenge

Tuesday

Aug 26, 2014 at 6:30 PM

As students begin going back to school across the region, a congressman — complete with pad and pen — was doing his homework in Greater Fall River on Monday. After joining other officials at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the beautiful new Somerset Berkley Regional High School, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III came to Fall River, where he toured Stanley Street Treatment and Resources.

Herald News Editorial Board

As students begin going back to school across the region, a congressman — complete with pad and pen — was doing his homework in Greater Fall River on Monday. After joining other officials at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the beautiful new Somerset Berkley Regional High School, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III came to Fall River, where he toured Stanley Street Treatment and Resources.

At the treatment facility, a patient — flanked by SSTAR staff — told Kennedy about her recovery from addiction thanks to SSTAR’s services. SSTAR CEO Nancy Paull told Kennedy about the evolution of drug and alcohol treatment, along with mental health care, that the federally qualified health center offers.

As addiction has moved out of the shadows, the treatment options for those seeking help have also moved out front and diversified. As a community treatment center, SSTAR is constantly adapting to the needs of the community — offering innovative programs that not only help the person seeking treatment, but also help their families and support structures understand their disease to become partners in their recovery. SSTAR offers a host of medical services on both an inpatient and outpatient basis at its facilities in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Just over the past year, SSTAR has made huge strides in making its services available when people are ready to get help. SSTAR’s outpatient behavioral health unit has provided open access for new patients. Offering help when addicts seek it is crucial for breaking the cycle of addiction.

Previously, those seeking help sometimes had to wait three months to get an appointment for mental health and treatment services. Now, the clinic opens first thing in the morning, at 7:30 a.m., to immediately assess patients and sometimes offer them services they need on the spot. That wait can make the difference between life and death. Existing patients in crisis situations can often be seen the same day.

As more people in our area struggle with addiction and the problem has come into focus, more people are seeking treatment — often at the urging of their loved ones. Fortunately, more services have also become available to meet that need — both in the nonprofit and for-profit health care sectors.

While it’s great that there is a range of treatment options available to those of varying means, Paull is concerned that for-profit facilities are “bleeding” top staff from nonprofits like SSTAR and taking on easier cases, while leaving the most challenging cases for nonprofits to treat.

With so many addicts seeking treatment in our community, neither the nonprofit nor for-profit facilities are equipped to handle all of the cases alone. Sufficient government resources going to nonprofit treatment facilities might allow a more cooperative approach to offering treatment in communities. For their part, for-profit treatment facilities must be better community partners in handling cases of all degrees.

It will take strong partnerships between for-profit and non-profit facilities, along with the government resources nonprofits depend on, to heal our community from the scourge of addiction that continues to afflict it.